


Forgotten Birthday

by dirtylittlegreasemonkey



Category: Emmerdale
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-22
Updated: 2016-04-22
Packaged: 2018-06-03 19:57:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,105
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6624148
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dirtylittlegreasemonkey/pseuds/dirtylittlegreasemonkey
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Robert wakes up on the morning of his 30th birthday to an empty bed and the sinking feeling that Aaron's forgotten all about the special day, but has he?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Forgotten Birthday

Sunlight, the April grey gauze of it, washed across the bedroom and eventually his eyelids opened. It took him several long seconds to feel the itch of the number thirty scratching away at his consciousness. His birthday. From outside, through the open window, he could hear the chugging engine of a delivery van outside the shop – unusual for a Friday – and then someone’s voice, someone he didn’t recognise wishing David a good morning. Robert exhaled deeply into the pillow, feeling the warm dampness of his breath pushed back onto his face and then he moaned, half-sleepishly, half-childishly, stretched and rolled onto his back.

He expected to hear the voice, the one that had once lived in his fantasies, then his dreams and then for the past week – his reality. The gruff, richness of it wrapping itself around them in bed, shrinking the room until they were just two bodies, two heartbeats. The voice that wasn’t just a sound, but a feeling in the pit of his stomach, the root of his throat.

But once he’d turned over, onto his back, the bed was wrong. All wrong. He sat up, patting the mattress down as if he was expecting it to melt away like a dream, or for Aaron to appear beside him, lips small and parted and curved in that way they did in sleep. But neither of those things happened. He was alone, mauling the bed beside him in some pathetic act of desperation. Aaron had no idea it was his birthday – and why would he? He’d mentioned an early start last night and what could Robert have done? Pouted a bit and said “But what about me? What about my birthday?” He wasn’t going to be a brat. They’d had enough of that with Liv the past few days.

He’d thought about mentioning his birthday last night but bringing it up if Aaron had forgotten was only going to make him feel like shit. He’d begged and pleaded with Chas to give them a break from Liv for the night and although Aaron had been unsure about it, he was eventually persuaded into a quiet night in – just the two of them at Vic’s. They had the place to themselves after Robert had paid Adam to take Vic out for the night, fearing that she’d just sit and watch them all evening with her nose scrunched and her head tilted to the side. They couldn’t be normal with her spying on them, creeping in the room to ask them if they wanted a drink every fifteen minutes.

When Vic found out, he hadn’t been home in a day and hadn’t answered her texts which were a series of question marks, grinning emojis, love hearts and the two men holding hands, but once she heard his feet in the hallway, she’d come running downstairs in her uniform and threw her arms around him. Then punched him on the chest.

“I had to hear it from Adam!” she said. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

He shrugged her off, sheepish, and moved into the kitchen to make a drink. “We’re just…being careful.”

“But it’s officially official now?!” She made gestures in the air as she spoke, following behind him like a petite shadow.

He heard a little rush of air coming from his smile. “Yes, Vic, alright?” he said. “We’re together.”

She squeezed his sides, making a little squealy sound. “I’m so happy for you!”

“Can you let go?” he said, swerving her gaze and feeling stifled all of a sudden. “Only I’m trying to make a coffee, here.”

Her voice changed into something softer, quieter. “I’m really proud of you, you know.”

“Don’t get carried away,” he said, but reached out and squeezed her hand. “But thanks.”

So he’d managed to get rid of them both, while he and Aaron ordered a stupid amount of Chinese and ended up on the sofa watching a repeat of Shaun of the Dead for the hundredth time. Aaron’s eyes had been closing in heavier blinks but Robert didn’t want to push him into staying. His arm rested around the back of his shoulders and he drew his thumb across the line of Aaron’s stubble. He wanted to say: _Stay the night_. He wanted to wake up with him in the morning and not think about his mum and dad, or the years without them. He wanted Aaron to hold him, to feel his skin and stop him thinking about every bad thing he’d ever done. But instead he said nothing, just listened to the drowsiness thud through Aaron’s breaths.

“I’m falling asleep here,” Aaron said, rubbing his wrist across his eyes. He turned to look at Robert, their foreheads touching. Robert saw him pull at the sleeve of his jumper, using his thumb to hook it down around his hand. “Are you gonna invite me to stay?”

He was unable to avoid the smile. He stroked along Aaron’s face until his hand came to rest on his chest, somewhere above his heart. “I didn’t want you to say no.”

“I’m not saying no.”

Robert’s eyes slipped closed and in that fraction of darkness, Aaron’s mouth pressed up to meet his. He didn’t need to validate tomorrow by telling Aaron it was his birthday. What did it matter? It was just a day. He let his lips brush over Aaron’s.

“Bed?”

“Sounds good,” Aaron said.

But some small, arrogant part of him had still hoped Aaron would remember. Even after everything that had passed. He ran his hand along the creased dent in the bed, remembering last night, the heap of soft, heated sighs as Robert took his mouth down Aaron’s body. They’d gone to bed and woken up from their TV slumber just enough to undress and let their mouths take familiar routes to pleasure. Nothing could ever feel as good.

Robert picked himself up out of bed, pulling on underwear and a dressing gown. He thought of Aaron at the scrapyard, unlocking the portacabin and making himself a brew. He mentioned a client dropping off some scrap early so he’d probably tried to leave without waking Robert. It was ten to eight and Robert’s chest sank that Aaron had likely been gone for a good half an hour without so much as waking him for a goodbye kiss. And on his birthday. Maybe he was bothered after all.

It wasn’t that he minded turning thirty. Granted, he hadn’t achieved everything he wanted to before he hit the big three-oh (his own multi-million pound company, his own place, a TVR), but maybe things were better when they diverted from the plan. What had he expected it to be like when he was thirty? If you’d asked when he was a lad, pre-teen and blond curtains, he might’ve said running his own computer firm in the city, a flash car. And then as he got older he would have said, just to be someone, anywhere that was far away from Emmerdale. And then later it was the obligatory grown-up package of wife, big house, nice car and maybe a kid or two. And then the path had changed, swerved. He met Aaron and grand plans tarnished, slipping away as if he’d never wanted them. He couldn’t have planned for it, expected or even actively wished for it. But he’d ended up at home, home in location and home in himself. Home in a place he’d never found it in before with a man who was the closest thing to home he’d ever felt in a person. Ageing didn’t bother him, not now. It wasn’t that he felt younger; he felt new. He’d never let life just happen before, it was always control, control, avoid and avoid.

He wondered if he could grab himself a quick breakfast, sneaking out before Vic cornered him and tried to get him to agree to anything birthday related. He didn’t want to admit to her that Aaron had forgotten; he knew she’d see the disappointment on his face. With any luck she’d have already left. He headed to the landing, tightening up the belt on his dressing gown and took the stairs two at a time. Vic appeared at the bottom and it startled them both. Her face morphed immediately into a wide smile.

“Happy Birthday!” she said, chiming and opening her arms up to meet him on the middle of the stairs. “How does it feel to be old and past it?”

“Pretty much the same as ever,” Robert said, squeezing the top of her arm. He could hear sounds in the kitchen and wondered just how much mess Adam was making in there. Typical of him to be dossing at home when Aaron had gone to the scrapyard early. “Vic,” Robert said, catching her before she slid past. “You didn’t see Aaron leave this morning, did you? He had to leave early for the scrapyard and…”

Victoria’s face had changed. He knew her too well, her head sort of dipped down and then she straightened up her gaze, corrected the position of her mouth after biting her lip.

“What, what’s the face for?”

“Oh, he didn’t forget your birthday, did he?” That face again. He could swear her eyes were actually grinning.

“Come on, what’s so funny?”

“No reason!” she said, calling out as she ran up the rest of the stairs. It really was like living with a kid sister, a real kid.

Robert huffed his way down the last few steps, his lungs filling with the smell of a fried breakfast and coffee. No wonder Adam was making so much noise if he was faffing around cooking a full English. Robert could smell it all – sausages, egg, bacon, moderately burnt toast. His stomach gave a little kick of hunger. He turned the corner, out of the hallway and straight into the kitchen.

Straight into the full sight of Aaron, in a t-shirt and boxers, laying up a tray of breakfast food. Robert froze in the doorway, unable to move any closer, like it would break this trance. Surely he wasn’t still sleeping?

“What’s all this?”

Aaron turned, slightly flushed in the face. He looked shyly back to the stove, fishing bacon out of the pan with a spatula. “What does it look like?”

“I thought you were working?” Robert edged into the room, trying not to crowd him, but his whole body pulsed. He watched the concentration on Aaron’s face as he moved from pan to plate, crouching to check the oven and then sliding over to the toaster. He took in the full sight of him, the gentle wave of his unstyled hair, the stretch of the black t-shirt across his chest and the brief flex of his muscles as he carried a pan over to where the tray sat. How he could get used to this sight. The quiet intensity spun in the blue of Aaron’s eyes.

“I had to tell you something to keep you surprised,” Aaron said, letting a smirk warm his small red mouth.

“You remembered?” Robert felt his own cheeks warm up, shier than he usually felt.

“Of course I remembered,” Aaron said, dropping toast onto a plate. “What do you take me for?”

“You’ve had a lot on your mind,” Robert said. He lowered his gaze as he leaned against one of the kitchen counters, sliding his hands into the pockets of the dressing gown.

“I know,” Aaron said, stopping his plating up of the food for a moment. He paused. To the outside world he’d look like he was thinking about what to say, but Robert knew him better than that – he wasn’t thinking what to say, he knew that already, he was pushing the things away that he didn’t want embedded in new memories. “But you…After everything you’ve done for me these past months, I wasn’t just gonna forget your birthday.”

“It looks great.”

“You haven’t tasted it yet.”

Robert laughed and had a quick spy into one of the pans. Beans in one, tomatoes in another. “I want brown sauce on mine, alright?”

“Alright,” Aaron said, smiling at him in a way that made Robert feel young and invincible. He looked so free, so open. Even if for Aaron it took more effort than most to shut the darkness out, his smile was the brightest, the warmest. The one Robert felt the most.

“Oi. Get back upstairs,” Aaron said, exaggerating his nods in the upwards direction. “You can’t have breakfast in bed _in the kitchen_.” Having Aaron order him around was something that never failed to be a turn on, and Robert gladly sprinted back upstairs.

*

“How does it feel?” Aaron asked, mouth full and dipping a corner of his toast into ketchup. “Being old?” He has his plate of food between them as he decided to eat, reclined and angled to one side, propped up on his elbow.

“Doesn’t feel any different,” Robert said, with a quick assessment of how his body felt. The same. His face crumpled in disgust at Aaron’s noisy munching and the way he dipped his thumb in the leftover sauce on his plate. Half starved, Robert had already finished his plate of food and had slid the tray onto the floor. “You know what they say, anyway…”

“What?” Aaron asked.

Robert reached over Aaron’s tray and across the bed, landing his hand on the top of Aaron’s thigh. He squeezed. “You’re only as young as the man you feel.”

Aaron snorted. “With lines like that…”

“I’m irresistible.”

“You _think_ you’re irresistible. There’s a difference.”

Robert took the tray away from the middle of the bed and placed it on the floor on top of his, once Aaron had almost licked the plate clean, and shuffled down the bed so they were the same height – eye level.

“Thank you,” he said, feeling his body consumed by a sluggish weight that was more than just a satisfied hunger.

“You only get breakfast in bed on special birthdays,” Aaron said. “Just so you know.”

Robert’s hands reached out towards Aaron’s waist, his fingertips trickling heat under the hem of Aaron’s t-shirt. “What about the years in between?”

Aaron shrugged. “We’ll see.”

Robert inched forward and pressed his mouth against Aaron’s. The rough of his stubble made wiry friction around his chin but he didn’t care, he associated the burn of it with the pulse throbbing in his body and the muscles tightening in his gut. He couldn’t separate the smell of Aaron from the smell of the warm bed and the nights they’d spent together and he surged that feeling into the kiss, pulling Aaron’s body nearer. The flat of Aaron’s palm came to his chest and then clutched at his shoulder as the kiss deepened, more breathy and faster than it had started.

There was a brief, hesitant laugh from Aaron and he pulled away, his hand returning to Robert’s chest. “Before you get carried away,” - Aaron said – “I’ve got something else for you.”

Robert couldn’t take his eyes from the wet smudge of Aaron’s mouth and the way his breath ghosted between his words. It took him a moment to process what was happening as Aaron removed himself from the bed and headed to his jacket which was hung on the bedroom door.

“It’s not much,” Aaron said, removing a rectangular package from inside the coat. He’d even wrapped it. “I bought it ages ago and then I thought about chucking it but…well I didn’t.”

Both of them withdrew their gaze, knowing what Aaron’s comment meant, knowing how they were trying not to let the past define them. Aaron kneeled his way back up the bed and handed Robert the gift.

“If you don’t want it…it’s just I remembered you saying…”

Robert used his thumb to slide between the sellotaped edges and ripped the paper. After a few more tears the wrapping paper fell away and he was left holding a Blu-ray copy of the first X-Men movie. He felt his throat constrict, a solid and sharp pain wedge into his throat. Aaron remembered. Aaron remembered his stupid vulnerable little story from his past. They’d been in bed at Home Farm just talking, debating the wrongs and rights of Marvel universe movies and comics (Aaron thought they were for kids but he’d had a weird passing interest in Gambit from the X-Men cartoons which he hadn’t really realised was a boyish crush until much later). And then Robert had grown quiet and Aaron had asked him what was wrong.

“It’s nothing. It’s stupid.”

“Go on.”

Robert had rubbed a hand across his face and stared ahead, steeled himself. “A couple of months before mum died I’d been sulking to her that all my mates were going out late to the cinema and Dad never let me go. I went on and on and on at her, kicked up a right fuss. You know how it is. Told her she was selfish and she didn’t get a damn about me. And then, I think she felt guilty or she just did it to keep me quiet, but she bought me and all my mates tickets to go and see the first X-Men film. I felt like a proper grown up, you know? We went to this big multiplex and spent a fortune on popcorn. And it was great. I never really appreciated it at the time, but then when she died…it was all I could think about. That I didn’t thank her properly.” He had pressed his fingers into his eyes. "It's stupid really, but I've never watched it since. I didn't really fancy watching it on my own."

Aaron had placed his hand on Robert’s then and Robert had tried to distract them both by turning immediately to sex. But Aaron had remembered. All this time.

Robert held the box in his hands, eyes edging up to see the nerves on Aaron’s face.

“I thought…this way, you don’t have to watch it on your own. If you want,” Aaron said, his voice a little uneasy. He straightened up a little and let his smile connect with Robert’s eyes. “And it’ll take you back to your youth. Stop you feeling so old.”

Robert smiled, feeling every drum inside his chest. "Thank you," he said, echoing it silently to his mum. It was easier to think of her and his dad when he wasn't lonely, when he was happy. In love. The way they'd want him to be, the hope they'd had for him on every birthday.

“Happy Birthday,” Aaron said.


End file.
